Hi,

How can some registrars selling .com domains for $3,5 / year???

Thank you,
Leo

It varies by TLD, but the cost of a .COM domain for a registrar is $6.00 ($6.00 for Verisign, $0.25 for ICANN). If you're buying the domain from a reseller chances are they are paying even more.

Registrars and resellers who sell domains for less than what they cost are called loss leaders. They use their low cost domain names to sell other products, usually webhosting, and the $2 or $3 loss per domain they have to eat, is less than what their normal advertising costs for print ads and banner ads for their hosting company.

From an outsider perspecitve that may seem ridiculous, but I know for a fact it is extremely effective for generating hosting revenue.

You will find the same pattern. They will limit to a single year. They are just trying to attract new customers mainly for hosting